Yorkshire music blog

In Conversation with JUDAS

Our absolute favourite band, JUDAS, came to Leeds to kick off their Double Denim Live tour just a fortnight ago. As always the guys blew the roof off the venue and we had the pleasure of speaking to them before they headed on to stage.

So, how excited are you for the tour?

John: We cannot wait. We’re looking forward to seeing what the crowds are gonna be like to be honest
Sam: We’ve got tour blues at the moment, it’s our first UK headline tour. Last year we played all over but it wasn’t really “a tour”, we just played all over.

Are you playing new venues, new places or sticking to what you know?

John: Yeah loads of places we’ve never played before. Scotland, ah I can’t wait to play in Glasgow, I’ve been there before and it was just the best night of my entire night so I can’t wait to get back there.

Thinking back to last year, what an incredible time for you guys, any highlights?

Sam: It’s safe to say it was the best year of our lives
John: Easily yeah, and I think it’s just been, watching all the fans grow and watch everything grow. We work hard so it’s nice to see everything work out and come in to place really. We love doing what we’re doing and we don’t want to stop.

And Leeds Festival? How was the reaction there?

John: It was amazing I can’t believe it really. We made a load of friends through This Feeling last year and getting on the festivals was ace. We’re playing a lot of the bigger stages this year like we’ve got a load secretly coming up which we can’t wait to announce.

How paramount is it to be on social media nowadays; you guys have grown a huge online presence?

John: To be fair you can grow and be huge as a band without even playing a gig due to social media. We’ve done it sort of the old fashioned way, done hundreds of gigs up and down the country grinding it out. Sometimes though if you put a song on Facebook you can get 100 people like it straight away when we’re driving to Sheffield or something for five people, so it is very important.

What can we expect with new music this year?

We’re going into the studio on Monday; to be fair, its to be confirmed what we’re doing.
Sam: We’ve just signed with our first manager, finally.
John: Yeah that’s all going well so we’re just going through a strategy and planning what we’re doing

Is it better music than before in your opinion?

Sam: Yeah definitely, we’d like to think so.
John: We always try to make the next song better than the song before
James: For the past six months we’ve just been home demoing and doing one song every one or two weeks so we’ve just got huge catalogue of tunes and just handpicking the best ones

What can people expect on the new shows?

John: Everything is gonna be that touch more upscale, we’re all better now at playing and singing and my darling voice
Sam: Where we were last year we’re just an overall better band, singing, playing, all much better
John: We’ve got some amazing stuff coming up

Is there a music bucket list for you

John: For me I want to play Manchester Arena, and I know being from Liverpool that might seem weird. Not the echo because when I’ve grown up watching bands I didn’t go to the Echo, they all played at the Manchester Arena
Sam: I dunno, just spending the rest of my life doing this. We all do this five days a week this is the day job.

And London, how cool is that.

John: Yeah we all live together in this little flat so we just chill writing songs all day it’s really cool. Since we lived together we’ve become so much better as a band and we write together and stuff. Our last gig was 3 months ago though so tonight could be sketchy haha. We were match fit last year, this is like the first game of the season when everyone’s a bit tight.

If you could be any movie character in any movie ever who would it be and why?

John: I’d be Leonardo di Caprio in The Wolf of Wall Street because he’s a fucking king.
Sam: If I can’t be him I’d be Jason Seagal in I Love You Man because he has loads of money and bangs loads of birds and does nothing else?

If you could change anything about the industry what would it be and why?

John: To be honest, we don’t really know too much about it so far. Everything we have come across has been good for us so far.
Sam: I think the closure of small venues which is huge and massive for us. Last year we probably played 150 shows in small venues so if there weren’t any of them there wouldn’t be JUDAS probably.

Now, I’m curious because I rarely get there but what should we know about the Liverpool scene that we don’t?

John: Me and Nick were in a band in Liverpool and I thought it was really hard, there aren’t many bands, not as many promoters, not many venues. When we were about The Jackobins were but there weren’t many more. I don’t know how big the scene is or what it’s like. It’s one of the places we’ve least played
Sam: It’s just not got a place for a oyung band who aren’t big to play. If you’ve got a fan base and you can sell ut it’d be a lot easier. We always find it really hard to be honest
Todd: Sound City was amazing though, that’s awesome, we played The Cavern which was cool, that was amazing
John: Yeah we did BBC Intro in Merseyside and they gave us the Cavern which was so cool. But yeah, it’s like a stop off place really.

One highlight one low light to finish?

John: Low light was when we did Leeds at Oporto and we had to drive back to London after at like 1am and these lot were all asleep. I fell asleep at the wheel and Todd was like wake up!
Todd: There was this lorry and I was like John John!
James: What about when we broke down, that was bad it was pissing down, it was cold it was 5am.
John: Oh yeah our van broke in Winter. We got a hire van and our tire burst on this brand new van.
Todd: We were just sat there in winter freezing outside a van
John: Truck fest was amazing
Todd: That festival was the funniest night of my life so far
John: There was that Sheffield gig too that was an amazing night with the pink glasses and cowboy hat.

These boys will, I promise you, blow up. Catch them on tour this year or forever regret not seeing them in a small intimate venue! Much love xx